THERE IS NO MYSTERY IN CHRIST! (Excerpt from "A Guide To Awareness And Tranquillity" By William Samuel)

If one hundred theologians were asked to define Christ, they would likely give a thousand different answers. Why are there so many opinions? Because theology echoes the myriad distortions that spring from the intellect.

Once the intellect has been subdued sufficiently to allow the Heart to be heard, we begin to get the answers; and the Heart's messages are soothing and uncomplicated, nothing like the bedevilling bamboozlement of a befuddling intellect!

So, how does the Heart interpret the Christ? As simple truth! As gentle, unpretentious truth. You can spell this word with a capital or not—it is the same truth which is the Christ! The Heart reveals that "Truth" and "Christ" are identical—meaning "the same one."

The dictionary defines truth as "fact; that which is; conformity to reality." "I am the truth," said Jesus Himself. "Identity-I (and not the possessor of it) am the Truth, the fact of Reality." Identity is the Christ-Truth itself.

This is much too simple and unsophisticated for human theology, of course. Man has a penchant for complicating the simple. He would have the Christ range from a very literal, bleeding body named Jesus of Nazareth, to a metaphysical mystery of transcending Light and Illumination, or both. The simplicity of "Christ" and simple, lowly, unpretentious, gentle "Truth" as synonymous terms is too naive a concept for intellectual churchdom. Erudition is steeped in the esoteric, egobuilding disciplines of its man-hewn theological "mysteries."

The world church makes Truth one thing and Christ another; but the fact is, simple Truth (truth) itself is everything meant by the term. The Christ proclaims: "I am the Truth. I, Truth, am come to take away the untruths of the world. Behold, I am with you always. I will never leave you nor forsake you." Indeed, the Christ-Truth is here—not far off, not something we must struggle up a long, rugged mountain to reach. Let us understand this here and now!

If we can comprehend and admit that the alphabet is here or that the principle of arithmetic is here, that the harmonious principle of music is here, or that Life, this Now-Awareness-I-Am, is here—then we can surely rest, stop fighting it and admit, concede, surrender to the fact that the simple truth—the Christ-Truth—concerning our rightful Identity is right here, right now, present!

Are you willing to make this simple admission? Or will you deny it? The only "second coming" Truth awaits is our individual acknowledgment of its presence as our very own Identity!

*******************

The mathematical fact that two plus two is four is the Christ-Truth "come to heal" the hellish, devilish notion that two plus two is not four—which, as any student will tell you, is pure "sin" on an examination paper. The student laboring over a page of problems in which a mistake appears, uncovers and corrects that mistake with the simple truth of the problem. Christ is the tender within-ness that says, "This is correct; this is right; this is so; this is how it is!"

Exactly as Jesus said, the truth does not come to destroy Reality's world of images, but to fulfill it; to point it out; to edify and clarify. Consequently, truth appears to destroy the impostor-ego and his misevaluations of Deity's Universe. (But who is that one? No one! No thing!)

The truth of everything—even the small and inconsequential—is the Christ! It is this simple! The human mystery is gone out of it.

*******************

THE CHRIST IS HERE

Surely, the truth that is "with us always" and "withholds himself from no man" is not so arcane and difficult that only the Illumined Elect are "saved," as mysticism teaches! Surely, the truth that says "Come unto me all who are weary" doesn't withhold itself from all but those who have suffered long years of self-immolation or have died as intellectual churchdom has taught from its conception! The truth withholds itself from naught! It is not out there somewhere else, but here, ready and available to separate fact from fiction; present to awaken mankind from his prodigal-like peregrinations around his silly misjudgments of Identity. The Christ is here this instant to show us all truth.

ILLUMINATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

QUESTION: Where is the truth first discovered?

ANSWER: With in oneself alone.

When one turns within himself to this secret place and listens to the Heart, something is soon felt as a warmth and excitement, as a joyful Presence. This simple stirring-within is the Christ-experience. It has been called "Enlightenment" and "illumination." But, how many times this simple, tender stirring of the Heart has been overlooked, unheeded, unheralded, unappreciated, even denied, because Truth was believed to be a blinding road-to-Damascus illumination.

It is no such thing. "I come when thou least expect, as a thief in the night," the Christ declares. "Behold, I stand at the door. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. I come quickly. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I am with you always. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, Christ shall give thee light."

*******************

LIGHT
Inevitably, the truth puts a new light on everything because Truth and Light are the same Christ. The truth of anything is the light that dispels the darkness (ignorance) concerning it.

"I am the light," says the Christ-truth. Furthermore, "I am the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Does this sound as if the Christ were something far removed, nebulous and unattainable? Or that we must await its first or second coming?

Thank you SandyJoy; very appropriate for the holiday. Perhaps the real celebration of the resurrection of Christ shouldn't be restricted to an observance of something that happened 2000 years ago and one's own possibility of resurrection after death if they had the proper belief system, but be a reminder of the ever present possibility of resurrecting our own Christ nature in this very moment. A resurrection that isn't dependent on holding a belief system but on an actual direct realization of what lies at the core of each of us.

How often have Christians declared that Jesus is the only way because of the often quoted statement by him, "I am the truth," etc. and that those who don't follow Jesus are doomed to hell. I have wondered at times if a word was left out by those who first copied the original manuscript because they didn't fully grasp what he was saying. What if his actual words began thusly, "I am is the truth"...

That would change everything, wouldn't it? Who can possibly deny their own existence, one's own "am-ness"? And to discover that that is the way to truth would offer "resurrection" right now to everyone regardless of religious, philosophic, cultural, or nationalistic persuasion.

Happy Easter everyone.

"Miss Kelly, perhaps you'd like this flower. I seem to have misplaced my buttonhole ... Miss Kelly, you know, when you wear my flower you make it look beautiful." Elwood P. Dowd
---

Reading through your posts Kiki has helped me more then you could possibly know. My 70 year old mentor said, "The awareness in you, yutso recognized itself in Kiki. Yours was a deeper awareness, which led me to deepening awareness. You are a gifted teacher.